Construction of the first airfield at Rechlin started in 1916; the airfield was officially opened on 29 August 1918 under the governance of the German Empire. After the end of World War I, the airfield was closed again and many of its installations dismantled. During the 1920s, the airfield was reopened as a civilian airbase, but it was soon used as a testing ground for the secret German air force experiments under the Treaty of Rapallo. The site was probably chosen for its remote location in an almost uninhabited area.

On February 26, 1936, per order of Wehrmacht GeneralfeldmarschallWerner von Blomberg, the Rechlin airfield became the official testing ground of the newly formed Luftwaffe. The turf-surfaced site, still bounded by the aforementioned hexagonal-layout ring road around its perimeter, was designated as the central Erprobungsstelle (E-Stelle) test facility of the Luftwaffe, and was expanded by constructing two more airfields: a second, smaller turf-surfaced field just east of the main site in nearby Roggentin and just south of the main site at Lärz, the latter of which became the modern 21st century airfield site. Construction work on the airfields and the accompanying barracks was partly carried out by forced labor from nearby concentration campRavensbrück.

Many of the Luftwaffe's new combat aircraft prototypes were test flown at the main turf-fielded Rechlin facilities; the special operations combat wing of the Luftwaffe, KG 200, with its array of captured planes was a regular guest at the airfields. After several Allied bombing runs on the primary turf-surfaced aerodrome field of Rechlin, and the satellite Roggentin airfield in 1944, testing of late-war planes was shifted just southwards to Lärz. On April 10, 1945, a final bomber attack by the US Army Air Forces – amounting to 11 B-17s and 159 B-24s from the 8th Air Force[1] which was targeting airfields used by German jet fighters – almost completely destroyed the airfields; what was left was blown up by the German garrison before Soviet troops arrived at Rechlin on May 2.

In 1946, the Soviet Air Force established a permanent presence at the airbase. The 19th Guards fighter-bomber regiment[2] of the 16th Air Army and a helicopter squadron were stationed at Lärz; the airfield at Rechlin was used by the National People's Army (NVA). Military usage of the airfields continued until 1993, when the last Russian air force units were moved home. The Rechlin airfield was reopened for civilian use in 1994.

Edgar Petersen, the World War II Luftwaffe colonel (Oberst) who commanded both the Rechlin facility, and was the "KdE" (Kommandeur der Erprobungstellen), or commander for the entire Luftwaffe test department late in the war.